“What is this world coming to,” Adrian said, throwing back the last of his beer.

“It’s always been this way.”

“You think?”

Jim leaned back as the waitress planted freshies in front of the boys. “Nope, I know.”

“Deinde, ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti….”

Marie-Terese Boudreau lifted her eyes to the confessional booth’s lattice window. On the other side of the screen, the priest’s face was in profile and heavily shadowed, but she knew who he was. And he knew her.

So he was very aware of what she did and why she had to go to confession at least once a week.

“Go, my child. Be well.”

As he closed the panel between them, panic nailed her in the chest. In these quiet moments when she laid out her sins, the degrading place where she’d ended up was exposed, the words she spoke shining a brilliant spotlight on the horrible way she spent her nights.

The ugly images always took a while to fade. But the choking feeling that came from knowing where she was headed next was just going to get worse.

Gathering her rosary together, she put the beads and links in her coat pocket and picked her purse up off the floor. Footsteps right outside the confessional stopped her from leaving.

She had reasons for keeping a low profile, some of which having nothing to do with her “job.”

When the sound of heavy heels dimmed, she pulled open the red velvet curtain and stepped out.

Caldwell’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral was maybe half the size of the one down in Manhattan, but it was big enough to inspire awe in even the casually faithful. With gothic arches like the wings of angels and a lofty ceiling that seemed only inches away from Heaven, she felt both unworthy and grateful to be under its roof.

And she loved the smell inside. Beeswax and lemon and incense. Lovely.

Walking down by the chapels of the saints, she weaved in and out of the scaffolding that had been erected so that the clerestory’s mosaics could be cleaned. As always, the racks of flickering votive candles and the dim spotlights on the still statues calmed her, reminding her that there was an eternity of peace waiting at the far end of life.

Assuming you were allowed past the pearly gates.

The cathedral’s side doors were closed after six p.m., and as usual, she had to go out the main entrance—which seemed like a waste of the thing’s effort. The carved panels were much better suited to welcoming the hundreds who came for services each Sunday…or the guests of important marriage ceremonies…or the virtuous faithful.

No, she was more of a side-door kind of person.

At least, she was now.